The delegation, headed by Foreign Affairs Minister Yusuf Tuggar and Attorney General and Minister of Justice Lateef Fagbemi, arrived on Monday and held meetings with officials from the UK Ministry of Justice.
By Titilope Adako
President Bola Tinubu has dispatched a senior Nigerian team to London to discuss the case of former Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu, who has been incarcerated in the United Kingdom since March 2023.
The delegation, headed by Foreign Affairs Minister Yusuf Tuggar and Attorney General and Minister of Justice Lateef Fagbemi, arrived on Monday and held meetings with officials from the UK Ministry of Justice.
Alkasim Abdulkadir, Tuggar’s spokesperson, said the team’s main objective is to negotiate with British authorities on the possibility of Ekweremadu serving the remainder of his sentence in Nigeria.
Ekweremadu and his wife, Beatrice, were arrested in June 2022 by London’s Metropolitan Police after attempting to present a young man as a relative of their daughter, Sonia, to a private hospital in London, in a bid to secure an £80,000 kidney transplant.
The alleged victim later told police he had been brought to the UK under false pretences with the promise of employment.
In March 2023, a UK court convicted Ekweremadu, Beatrice, and medical doctor Obinna Obeta of organ trafficking, marking the first conviction under the Modern Slavery Act.
On May 5, 2023, Ekweremadu was sentenced to nine years and eight months in prison, Beatrice received four years and six months, while Obeta was handed a 10-year term.
Justice Jeremy Johnson ruled that Beatrice serve half of her sentence in custody and the remainder on licence. She was released in January 2024 and has returned to Nigeria.
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